November 2005 Review Period: July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2005 Table of Contents
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- Internal Changes to be Implemented
- III. Additional Resources Required
- Appendix D1 Learning Outcome Statements and Assessment Plans
Appendix C1DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL WORK FIVE YEAR ACTION PLAN February 1999 I. Introduction and Background The Department of Social Work offers two degrees, a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW), which is the entry level degree for social work practice and a Master of Social Work (MSW), which is the specialist degree for social work practice. Both degrees are subject to accreditation from the national Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) which sanctions all BSW and MSW programs. Initial accreditation was granted to the BSW Program in 1981 and full reaffirmation of accreditation was granted in 1995 and extends through 2003. The Georgia State University MSW Program was granted Candidacy Status in June 1998 and will be eligible for initial accreditation in the Spring 2001. There are currently two public accredited MSW programs in the state, the University of Georgia-Athens and Valdosta State University, one privately supported accredited MSW program in the state, Clark-Atlanta University, and one other publicly supported MSW program in a pre-accreditation status, Savannah State University. In July 1996, the Department of Social Work became part of the College of Health and Human Sciences after the College of Public and Urban Affairs was disbanded. The Department has ten full-time tenure track faculty including the Chairperson of which five are tenured, two at the Full Professor and three at the Associate Professor Level. Additional faculty include a full time non-tenure track faculty member, with a Ph.D., who is the Director of Field Education and an Academic Professional, who has an MSW degree and is Director of Student and Community Services and staff support that includes a full time Business Manager I and one administrative assistant. Moreover, the Department has one vacant tenure track position. Because of the nature of our mission with the MSW program, the faculty has approved the changing of the vacant position to a non-tenure track position in order to employ an individual with strong credentials in community work. The successful candidate for this position will have teaching and service responsibilities that will advance our community partnership orientation. Finally, the Department has been assured of one additional tenure track position from the FY 1999 College of Health and Human Sciences budget. Recruitment is underway for a person with an MSW, plus two years post masters practice experience and a Ph.D. to teach and conduct research primarily in the MSW Community Partnership Concentration. In aggregate, the Department of Social Work faculty are a highly productive group of teachers and scholars. They have a strong commitment to community service and the acquisition of external funds to support their research and to provide training. As evidence, several of the faculty have national reputations in their field of study earned through numerous publications in refereed journals and participation in service projects. They have demonstrated their ability to bring in extramural funding through involvement in grants and contracts totaling $300,000 from 1995-1998.
While the number of undergraduate majors and more precisely, the number of annual graduates has fluctuated over the years, there has been a general increase 1990-1996. The Department graduated 42 students in the 1996-1997 academic year and 77 in the 1997-1998 academic year. Given the size of the current cohort of students, the number of 1998-1999 BSW graduates will likely be closer to 60. We have been able to increase the class size for these two years since we have added the additional faculty. With the advent of the MSW program in fall, 1998, 14 full time students have begun the program. During the summer of 1999, we will admit approximately 10-15 advanced standing students (students with a BSW who will take nine semester hours in the summer and then start the second year with the initial class of 14) and fall 1999 we will admit our first part time evening MSW students and our second full time class. A combination of factors mandate that the Department of Social Work engage in ongoing and systematic self study and review, including APACE, accreditation for the existing BSW program (which is accredited through 2003) candidacy status for the MSW program, semester conversion, and reorganization into the College of Health and Human Sciences. As a result of these various forces, the Department of Social Work is well prepared to delineate its action plan for the next five years. II. Internal Changes to be Implemented A. Departmental Focus The various units of the College of Health and Human Sciences have a common understanding of the College=s mission and a real sense of commitment to achieving that mission. Inherent in this conceptualization is the necessity to engage in collaborative and cooperative efforts among the disciplines in the college and to translate those efforts into partnerships with other colleges and elements of the community. This collaboration has already begun as evidenced in a number of projects underway among faculty in social work and other departments in and out of the CHHS. The collaboration extends to the teaching responsibility as well. During the past year, the Departmental faculty participated in the planning and development of two upper division undergraduate multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary core courses in research methods and communications/diversity that are required of virtually all majors in the college. The teaching, research, and service collaborative efforts are tangible examples of a college focus, rather than a narrow departmental focus, and a definitive statement about the direction the College of Health and Human Sciences is moving. B. BSW Program
The Department will adhere to a minimum of a 2.5 program GPA as well as specific course completions for admissions. Since students must complete their course work in sequential order, the Department will monitor that sequencing during the progress of students through the curriculum. The Department has attempted to offer all courses to a new cohort of evening students each year. As laudable as this was given the composition of the student population at Georgia State University, the five year outlook for the department, make this no longer feasible. As a result, the Department instituted an every other year evening cohort, which began in the Fall of 1998. In practical terms, this was a redirection of one FTE to other needs within the department. In the Fall 1998, the curriculum implemented several modest changes. Besides the addition of two upper division college wide courses that supplanted the departmental research course and the addition of a course on Communications and Diversity in the social work core, the Department now requires that students take three of their five required electives from social work offerings. Prior to this time, students were free to take courses from a broad menu of courses with social work advisor approval. Often, these approved electives were courses students completed prior to selecting social work as a major. One of the available social work electives will be an enhanced course in Case Management and Community Resources. Several of the outcome measures for accreditation indicate that BSW graduates need additional knowledge and skill development in case management. We changed SW 300--Introduction to Social Work to a lower division course, SW 2000. This change allows lower division students to learn more about social work before they select a major. Several Community Colleges within the University System of Georgia offer an introduction to social work course and this allows for an improved transfer of semester credit hours.
The MSW program was granted Candidacy at the June 1998 Commission Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), right on schedule for the proscribed accreditation process. While in Candidacy Status, we will have one site visit per academic year from a CSWE Commissioner. The information and feedback received from these visits, will be used to write our self-study during the second year of the MSW program. Programs cannot receive initial accreditation until they have graduated one class of students. It is our goal to receive full accreditation during the Spring of 2001. In order to accomplish this goal and because of the rigorous and extensive work necessary to satisfy the accreditation standards set by CSWE, the faculty will continue to refine admission criteria, mission and objectives, create measurable outcomes and evaluative tools and develop curriculum and course outlines. All of these efforts must be reviewed and approved by faculty, advisory councils, students, and college committees. The Department will phase in the MSW program. We have received a waiver from the Board of Regents to offer a 60 semester hour masters which is the norm for graduate social work education. These hours include 900 hours of supervised internships for each student. The first year of the program is a foundation year that reflects much of the content of the BSW program. This foundation year includes the following content areas, research, human behavior and the social environment, social work practice, social welfare policy and services, values and ethics. The second year is a specialization year. While many MSW programs have the resources to offer several specializations, we will offer only one specialization. Our exclusive focus is Community Partnerships. During the first year of the MSW program, the students will receive a grounding in individual and family intervention skills, social welfare policy, human behavior and the social environment, social research, and fundamentals of community practice. In the second year, students will be taught skill sets that will help them develop the capacity to work with neighborhoods, organizations, and communities in such areas as coalition building, mediation, conflict management, team building, administration and planning, community action, policy analysis, fundraising, marketing, and use of technology.
As described above, the Department of Social Work will be leveling and stabilizing the size of the BSW program over the next two years in planned relationship with the growth of the MSW program. This change will allow the Department to comply with the proscribed student-faculty ratios of the Council on Social Work Education. All faculty will be expected to teach in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Virtually all faculty will be expected to maintain an active research agenda and to pursue external funding, though the level of these activities will be commensurate with the expertise and interests of the individual faculty member and the overall needs of the department. To that end, the Department will manage the resources available, travel, GRAs, release time, etc. without regard to whether a faculty member primarily teaches at the BSW or MSW level. This allocation of resources and delegation of assignments extends to such non teaching and scholarship assignments as club sponsorship, committee work, and student advisement. III. Additional Resources Required A. Faculty Support In order to accomplish the goals and objectives outlined above and to meet accreditation standards set by the Council on Social Work Education, the Department of Social Work will need additional resources. However, the Department has already taken steps through redirection to solve some of its human resource demands. In 1997, the Department of Social Work converted existing personnel funds to a new administrative support line rather than expecting an additional position from the university. The requirements of the job in a department with eight active faculty is demanding enough, but with a Field Education Program as extensive as ours, the job cannot be accomplished by one person. The creation of a second administrative support position was essential. B. Graduate Student Support Social work faculty currently make significant use of graduate students both in and out of the department. These graduate students have been essential to the research of faculty. We have 5 non-tenured faculty; we would like to see each nontenured faculty member have a graduate assistant for two semesters every other year in order to develop their research programs. We still would have GRAs available periodically for tenured faculty, although many of their GRAs will come from external funding. C. Future Needs The Department of Social Work requests that we be able to change our name to the School of Social Work. While such a name change would not affect the internal relationships of the department to other departments, the college, or the university, it would afford the department considerably greater external credibility. Of the approximately 120 graduate schools of social work in the United States, over 80% are schools including University of Georgia-Athens, and Clark Atlanta University. Of the 22 Urban Universities, 17 have social work programs and all are Schools of Social Work. Any examination of Schools of Social Work across the country and professional programs in general, particularly those programs that maintain a national reputation for excellence, have considerably more administrative support than the present administrative resources. While the Department of Social Work is fortunate to be able to recruit an additional staff person this year for admissions, it is difficult to fully assess the administrative needs as the program matures over the next five years. We do know that our PTI needs will increase as all components of the MSW program are implemented. While we fully expect that faculty grants will provide some revenue to hire PTIs, our current summer budget reflects funds to support only the BSW program. In a similar vein, our summer budget will need to be increased significantly to accommodate the demands from students in the MSW program and increased administrative responsibilities required by the accrediting body which mandates continuity through the summer months, specifically the Director of the BSW Program and the continuing work of the Director of Field Education. Administrative continuity contracts over the summer are considerably less costly than offering the same people 12 month contracts. To date, we have managed a limited summer budget for the BSW program, with limited offerings. However, beginning in the Summer of 1999, our offerings to MSW students will increase by at least three core courses per summer. Currently, we have no additional money in the summer budget to cover these courses.
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